Archive for January 15th, 2013

At the top of a fifty three story sapphire dagger plunged into the neck of a Long Island dwells an impossible thing gazing down upon the human hive via a three lobed burning eye, except that such a thing cannot possibly exist and to suggest so is madness. How could an intelligence of malign intent exist in bodiless form, and be granted the rights and privileges of citizenship with few of the obligations concurrent with such status?

- photo by Mitch Waxman

An ancient path, Jackson Avenue was once a trade route connecting the grist mills and farmlands further east with the docks and wharves to the west that allowed local merchants to trade with other cities along the East River. Over the years, it has seen mule paths give way to wagon, and street car, and eventually automotive traffic. Its purpose in modernity is unclear, a secondary truck route which allows passage from Queens Plaza to Hunters Point and the Pulaski Bridge, or a residential corridor destined for bistros and cultural institutions?

- photo by Mitch Waxman

A recent surge of building activity in the area has forced your humble narrator to consider that a bit more time must be spent here in Long Island City this year, an area which had fallen off my radar a bit in the last year. Inattention had little to do with a lack of interest, instead my time was spent “working” the zones found along Newtown Creek in Maspeth and Bushwick, two other colonial era centers seldom mentioned by the “manhattancentric crowd.”